The Hill

This 1986 trio album, featuring bassist Richard Davis and drummer Joe Chambers, is an interesting one-off. Murray never recorded with this rhythm section again, and they took him into different zones than he would explore with his quartet or octet. Davis, a brilliant bassist who’s worked with everyone from Andrew Hill to Van Morrison (he was the de facto bandleader on Astral Weeks), delivers a stunning bowed solo on Murray’s “Santa Barbara And Crenshaw Follies”; later, the trio romp through Duke Ellington’s “Take The Coltrane” and Chambers switches to vibes on a lovely version of Billy Strayhorn’s “Chelsea Bridge.”